Cult Cinema: Auto Focus

The subversive life of Bob Crane is captured in Auto Focus.

"...awwwww come on! What's wrongwith a little hidden camera porn?"

Self-destructive Hollywood celebrities, for all
the drama they brew on and off camera, are curious animals to director Paul
Schrader. Although it was a misfire, his last picture The Canyons endeared to
be another expose' of sleaze in the entertainment industry. What made The Canyons particularly unacceptable for me, besides being from the writer of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, is that it was from the director of one of my
favorite Hollywood celeb biopics of all time, Auto Focus.

Spanning several decades, Auto Focus is at
once a biographical treatise of the events leading up to actor Bob Crane's
still unsolved murder, a nonjudgmental character study of Crane, and a foray
deep into unchecked and destructive celebrity excess. It's also a shape shifting black comedy with
inspired performances by Greg Kinnear as Crane (still his finest hour) and
Willem Dafoe as a creepy videographer named John Carpenter, not to be confused
with the horror film director of the same name. Carpenter becomes Crane's partner
in crime as the two lead each other down a slippery slope of sexual addiction
and debauchery. In short, Auto Focus tells a tale of infidelity, addiction, and the toll it can take on a person
both personally and professionally.

Auto Focus begins at the height of Crane's
career, painting Crane as a well-to-do family man, happily married with
children, doing DJ work and occasional acting for film. He hit the big time when was given an offer
to be the lead in Hogan's Heroes. For those who don't remember it, Hogan's
Heroes was a strange sitcom about a band of Americans who constantly outwitted
their nazi captors during WWII for big laughs. The show was a hit, and it
catapulted Crane to super-stardom. His
success is cut short upon meeting the aforementioned Carpenter as the two dive
headlong into excess.

"This is the part where the twogirls bring out the cup!"

Greg Kinnear perfectly embodies the troubled
actor with all the charm and smiles Bob Crane used in both his television work
and his womanizing. Dafoe is equally strong as Carpenter, who can't seem to
live without Crane, becoming emotionally and perhaps physically attached to
him. The film is stylistically told in
three arcs, beginning with a sitcom, candy-colored look before gradually
growing gritty with handheld camera work. Angelo Badalamenti, who regularly
composes for David Lynch, lends a score that opens on a hip, jazzy note before
devolving into the dreaded ambient soundscapes he and Lynch are known for
creating.

As a narrative, Schrader isn't as focused on
trying to answer questions about Crane's addiction as he is interested in
watching Crane spiral downward. True to Schrader's previous character studies
such as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, we're watching a nonjudgmental
character study of a deeply flawed human being on his way to oblivion.

Unlike the aforementioned films, however, Auto
Focus has the capacity for being darkly hilarious, particularly during a
montage with Crane describing his penchant for the varieties of female breasts.
It's a diatribe of pure chauvinism and possible obsessive compulsive psychosis,
and Schrader portrays it as exactly that. At the end of the film, after Crane's
still unsolved murder, Crane looks back (via voiceover narration) almost fondly
at the antics that ultimately led to his death. Was Crane a victim, or was his
end inevitable due to his wild behavior?
Auto Focus, much like it's main character, seems less interested in
trying to figure the man out than simply smiling and waving as it passes him
by.